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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27384313">Molly Ringwald's Evil Dead Haunted House</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nacre_Voit/pseuds/Nacre_Voit'>Nacre_Voit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>My Chemical Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Descriptions of off-screen violence in a horror story, Drinking, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Mention of self-mutilation (horror themes), Mutual Pining, No band yet college AU, Oral Sex, Some Horror Themes, There's no non-con in this but there are gratuitous references to that rapey tree from Evil Dead, Unsafe Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:00:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,648</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27384313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nacre_Voit/pseuds/Nacre_Voit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You’ll like it,” Gerard insists, twisting at the waist to check himself out in the mirror at another angle, black fabric semi-sheer and glittering softly in the dim basement. “You love haunted house shit.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, haunted houses are pretty cool when you’re not going there to get your brother laid.”</em>
</p><p> <br/>Mikey and Ray get roped into being part of Gerard and Frank's first date at what Gerard insists is a haunted house. They try not to watch each other the entire time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, Ray Toro/Mikey Way, Ray Toro/a ghost??</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because I didn't have enough WIPS. College age AU where Mikey and Gerard still live at home and Ray and Frank are dormmates. </p><p>This was initially inspired by albeit not part of the My Trick or Treat Romance Halloween prompt challenge and also my love of Halloween, Ray sweet angel Toro, Molly Ringwald, Evil Dead and haunted houses. That title (which I promise will make more sense in the next two chapters...) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinylittletext">tinylittletext</a>, my personal favourite zombie prom queen and inspiring person without whom plenty of my fic wouldn't exist.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
“Please tell me why the fuck I’m going on this date.”</p><p>Gerard looks up at Mikey’s flat tone and grins at him over the shimmery black top he’s picked up from a precarious pile on his floor. Mikey leans back on his palms on Gerard’s unmade bed and arches his eyebrows emphatically.</p><p>“Pretty sure we discussed this, Mikes,” Gerard tells him, pulling the top over his head and wriggling his arms into the tight long sleeves. Mikey looks at him stonily.</p><p>“Tell me again.”</p><p>“You’ll like it,” Gerard insists, twisting at the waist to check himself out in the mirror at another angle, black fabric semi-sheer and glittering softly in the dim basement. “You love haunted house shit.”</p><p>“Yeah, haunted houses are pretty cool when you’re not going there to get your brother laid.”</p><p>Gerard scoffs but there’s a faint pink in his cheeks as he straightens his top.</p><p>“We’re not going there to get me <em>laid</em>; it’s a first date.”</p><p>“A first date with Frank. The guy who practically climbed on top of you when we were trying to watch <em>Star Wars</em>.”</p><p>“Frank gets cold,” Gerard says airily, but he has that expression on his face that he gets when he’s secretly pleased.</p><p>“Where, in his mouth?” Mikey mutters under his breath, shooting a sullen look at the back of Gerard’s head as he goes back to preening. Mikey likes Frank, is really pretty down with the way he’s become a fixture lately, but if he wants to push his mouth into Gerard’s collarbone and make Gerard audibly moan, he should be perfectly able to do that in private and not during <em>A New Hope </em>when Mikey’s <em>trying</em> to watch the trash compactor scene in peace.</p><p>“You’ll make it less…” Gerard starts and then trails off, making a face at the mirror that makes the bridge of his nose scrunch up and then sticking his tongue out.</p><p>“Normal?” Mikey supplies with a pointed look. Gerard sighs and turns around.</p><p>“You’re being pretty uncooperative today, huh,” Gerard comes over to the foot of the bed and cards distracted fingers through Mikey’s hair. “First dates are always weird. It’ll be more fun like this.” There’s a soft, anxious current of energy running across the pale skin of Gerard’s face and in the stiff line of his neck, and Mikey realises that Gerard is actually nervous about this. Mikey has no understanding at all about <em>why</em>, given that Frank’s response to Gerard picking him up a packet of vegan jalapeño corn chips at the gas station last week was to look at him with puppy eyes and a sort of disturbing unadulterated lust the whole way home.</p><p>“And Ray’s coming,” Gerard is saying, “so it’s not like you’ll be sitting pretty third-wheeling. You always wanna see Ray when he’s around.”</p><p>Mikey’s pulse kicks a little at that, hoping it’s not that obvious, the way he reluctantly pushes the door of his room open any time he hears Ray’s warm, high laugh in the house, finds himself padding down the stairs like it’s pulling just softly at a thread around his ribs. How he watches what Gerard and Ray are doing and then tentatively inserts himself into it, loving the way that Ray looks up with those smiling eyes and automatically makes room for him on the sofa.</p><p>“Besides,” Gerard adds, walking back to the mirror after Mikey doesn’t offer any further resistance, “I know what kind of nonsense you’re gonna get up to for Halloween if I leave you alone, Mikey Way.” Gerard puts a heavy emphasis on ‘nonsense’ as he drags a line of tape over his face an inch under his lower lash line. “I don’t want you lying in your room sulking about Pete and I also don’t want you going to a party and sulk-fucking any more girls and ghosting them so I have to take awkward calls on the landline.”</p><p>“I don’t sulk-fuck anyone,” Mikey mutters. He doesn’t articulate the part where he hasn’t been sulking about Pete at all. Pete was fun, hot and hard and crawling all over Mikey any time Mikey leered back at him and nodded, tugged at the zipper of his own hoodie. Mikey liked the way that Pete could go straight from those heavy-lidded, smoky looks, intense and all teeth with his hand hot between Mikey’s thighs to obnoxiously farting in the Kung fu movies they watched after, laughing and talking away through mouthfuls of take-out Char kway teow, Mikey flipping him off and letting out a soda-burp in reply. It’s not exactly that Mikey doesn’t miss Pete; Mikey sometimes misses Pete’s stupid-pretty cock and having someone to be gross with who’s not Gerard. But they didn’t break up, because they weren’t dating, and Mikey’s guess is that Pete’s still good for any of it if Mikey bothered to pick up his phone.</p><p>Mikey definitely doesn’t articulate the part where he thinks he stopped picking up his phone because he started turning over for Pete and closing his eyes, picturing light brown curls brushing the top of his spine, playing warm, high laughter in his head as he spread his thighs. He isn’t going to tell Gerard that he thinks he might be falling through the door late at night with a string of girls because their softer, sweeter-smelling bodies are a little more recalibrating, that he thinks he might be sulking because Ray doesn’t look at him with heavy-lidded eyes at all.</p><p>Gerard rolls his eyes in the mirror, one of them now surrounded by a glittery black strip of paint.</p><p>“You could sulk-fuck for America, Mikey.” Gerard finishes painting the other half of the bar around his eyes and turns to face him, swatting a lock of black hair away from his eyes. “How do I look?”</p><p>“Like you plan on having a dick in your mouth but in a futuristic way?” Mikey rubs his temples in exasperation. Gerard looks like he’s assessing that feedback for a moment and then shrugs and makes a face that says ‘close enough’. Mikey doesn’t want to know what he was aiming for.</p><p>“We haven’t even kissed,” Gerard says, almost as if he’s talking to himself, sucks his chapped lip hard as he smiles.</p><p>“Yeah, you’re both pretty weird and incompetent,” Mikey tells him, but his exasperation’s a little more affectionate this time and Gerard grins at him with the same affection as he extends both middle fingers.</p><p>“Go get dressed motherfucker, Toro’s always early.”</p><p>Mikey sighs and stomps upstairs and into his room, where he proceeds to put on five different outfits while pretending he’s not trying to pick out what Ray might like. He quickly shucks each one in frustration. It isn’t as if any of Mikey’s attempts to test the waters with Ray have had the desired effect, at any time, not freaking <em>once</em>.</p><p>Mikey knows what he looks like, understands that enough people look at his long legs and skinny hips and his angular face and think he’ll look pretty naked that it shouldn’t itch at his neck so much that Ray doesn’t look at him with loaded eyes. He’s tried wearing eyeliner and Gerard’s stolen lipgloss, skinny jeans that rode so low on his hips he was worried about showing pubes at Frank’s club gig; tried appearing out of the shower damp and clean wearing just a huge Pantera t-shirt, tugging it down lower over his bare thighs so that the thin rip in the fabric showed his stomach in the hallway when Ray came over on a Saturday; tried slinking past Ray with his eyeliner smeared and his lips swollen from sucking Pete’s cock at a house party, reeking of cum and smoke, eyelashes lowered and wet, as a last resort, in case Ray liked it dirty, passive, <em>anything</em>. Ray arched an eyebrow, that last time, and that was it.</p><p>Ray only looks at him and smiles, warm and wide and sweet, like he’s pleased to see Mikey, but not in the is-that-a-gun-in-your-pocket way. And it does itch, fucking aches, because Mikey wants him to <em>stare.</em></p><p>“He just likes girls,” Mikey tells himself in the mirror. “Get it fucking together.”</p><p>Some pearlescent white bones painted on black fabric catch his peripheral vision as he looks away from his face and Mikey glances at the skeleton shirt draped over his desk chair. The last girl he had over had left it there, probably taken one of Mikey’s hoodies with her instead so she’d have a reason to come over again. Mikey walks over and touches the fabric, realises it’s not a top but a t-shirt dress she’d been wearing over leggings. The fabric is stretchy and clingy looking and Mikey gnaws at his lip in consideration for a moment, tugging at it before he pulls it over his head.</p><p>He looks in the mirror again and it’s not bad, the dark viscose softly gripping his ribs, giving him as much of a waist as he can possibly have. It doesn’t give him <em>tits</em>, Mikey thinks, patting his flat chest and sticking his lip out, because he knows that Ray loves tits, has jealously watched Ray’s eyes go all keen and attentive in the shower scenes when they watch horror movies with Gerard. The skeleton dress doesn’t make him a pretty, double D-cup scream queen, but it makes him look girly, Mikey guesses. He shrugs and pulls his blackest tight jeans up his thighs underneath it and then heads back to the basement to find Gerard.</p><p>Gerard’s put a beat-up leather jacket on over the thin fabric of his top now, leaving a partially transparent strip exposed and glittering down the centre of his torso. He’s tapping his chipped polished nails on his desk and singing along to "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", which is playing at a low volume on his PC. </p><p>“Can you do my face?” Mikey asks, pointing vaguely at the painted ribcage stretching across his chest. Gerard gets out of his desk chair and then pats the seat and Mikey comes over and sits down, tilting his head up. “I dunno if I want teeth,” Mikey thinks out loud, taking his glasses off as Gerard reaches for the pearlescent white and matte black face paints. Gerard hums and shakes his head as he gets a soft grip on Mikey’s chin.</p><p>“Ray’s gonna show up before I can finish teeth anyway.” He tips Mikey’s face sideways and starts painting what feels like a misshapen circle that begins near the underside of Mikey’s lip and curls up into the dip under his cheekbone. “I’m just gonna do some hollows in your cheeks with like a bit of shiny exposed bone in them. And then around your eyes and bit of bone on your nose.”</p><p>Mikey nods and wonders what Ray and Frank will be dressed as while Gerard traces the cool paint over his face. The doorbell chimes upstairs as Gerard is finishing up Mikey’s left eye.</p><p>“I fucking told you, more than 15 minutes early,” Gerard tells him, looking at the clock on the PC. His eyes are lighting up as he puts the last touches around the eye and then leans down to paint a quick strip of asymmetrical bone on the tip of Mikey’s nose and two faint lines from the corners of his lips, and Mikey knows he wants to go to Frank. “There,” Gerard declares, smearing some of the pearly white paint across the centre of Mikey’s bare lips with his thumb as a final touch. “You’re all good, I’m gonna get the door.”</p><p>Mikey checks his face in the mirror, edging up to within a few inches of the glass so he doesn’t need to put his glasses on and have them rub at the paint before it’s finished drying. He likes the way the hollows Gerard’s created emphasise his cheekbones and his lips, thinks it’s a waste that no one who wants to pull his hair and push down into his mouth is going to be looking at him tonight. Mikey sighs and trudges up the stairs, groping at the wall and holding his glasses in his other hand.</p><p>As he reaches the first story, Mikey hears the door unlatching and sees Gerard’s blurry silhouette framed in the light that comes in from outside, and then Gerard swings the door wider and Ray and Frank’s silhouettes appear as well. Mikey puts his glasses on and looks up again, his pulse picking up a fraction as Gerard steps back.</p><p>“Hey,” Gerard says, low in his throat.</p><p>“Hey,” Frank responds, but it sounds like <em>“Fuck” </em>and Mikey makes a face as he comes closer and sees Gerard’s spine straighten and his small teeth glitter in a smile. It’s not like Mikey doesn’t get why Gerard’s so pleased that Frank wants him though, looking at Frank. Frank’s wearing faded grey jeans with large rips on both knees and slices so high up on both thighs that Mikey’s eyes linger briefly too. He’s shredded parts of the stomach of the pale green scoop-neck he’s wearing and painted red scratches on his abdomen and his collarbone, and there’s blood painted from his lips to his chin, like he’s drooling it.</p><p>The rest of Frank’s face is conspicuously pretty for a zombie, Mikey thinks, pale almost shimmery green paint that only thinly coats his bone structure and gleams in deeper layers around his eyes and mouth. He looks at Frank’s eyes, looking as pale and green as he’s ever seen them enhanced by all that bruised green framing them. <em>And is that fucking mascara? </em>Mikey blinks and frowns, pretending he isn’t focusing on Frank so that he can avoid looking at Ray, isn’t feeling flushed from inhaling his warm, musky-sweet smell already.</p><p><em>He’s always so fucking warm</em>, Mikey thinks, licking his dry lips and feeling a little light-headed as he steals a sideways glance at Ray.</p><p>“Hey Mikey, what’s up?” Ray says, voice affable and soft as usual, and Mikey’s eyes dart away.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m-” Mikey says airily, pushing his fingers up into his slightly stiff hair and looking somewhere in the vague vicinity of Frank’s shoulder. “I’m cool.” <em>Jesus, </em>Mikey winces internally at his own voice, looks up as Frank shifts and Mikey catches onto the fact that he’s looking fixatedly at Gerard’s mouth, lipgloss-shiny and smirking. Mikey grimaces and shuffles forward to give Ray a reluctant hug, because Gerard and Frank are looking at each other like they want to start crawling all over each other in the doorway and Mikey wants to prevent that. He wraps one arm around Ray’s shoulders, leaning just a tiny bit on his toes, because he’s not wearing shoes and Ray’s wearing boots, and Ray’s arm comes up around his waist, forearm squeezing softly upwards on Mikey’s lower back. Mikey melts into it, likes the way Ray’s hair trails along the side of his face for a moment, struggles not to picture Ray hugging the girls he sees like this, pressing their breasts up under his chest and their bellies lightly into his groin.</p><p>“You look great,” Ray says as they part, making a gesture that spreads the fingers on his broad hand as he indicates Mikey’s outfit. “The face paint looks really pretty.” Mikey tries not to preen at the word. “I mean,” Ray laughs, warm and high with a slight flush high in his cheeks, “hardcore. It looks hardcore.”</p><p>Gerard snorts, his attention finally distracted from Frank for a minute.</p><p>“What, you think I can’t paint pretty <em>and </em>hardcore, Toro?” Gerard and Ray exchange grins and Gerard leans forward and hugs him with both arms. “And what are you, anyway?” Gerard asks as he pulls away, tilting his head and surveying Ray’s outfit. Ray’s wearing a black leather jacket over what looks like a plain black top. Mikey’s eyes drag downwards without his permission and settle under Ray’s abdomen. Mikey’s suddenly aware of how heavy and wet his tongue feels in his mouth as he looks at the black leather hugging Ray’s thick thighs and hips and the <em>laces</em> over his crotch.  The laces are pulling just slightly over his cock, showing the curve of him under their neat criss-crossing lines. Mikey turns bright pink and attempts to swallow his own saliva.</p><p>“I wasn’t gonna come as anything but Frank got moody about it so I said okay to him picking out stuff at a thrift store.” Ray says, and Frank instantly gets a suspiciously angelic look on his face. “He found these pants and boots and said I could go as Brandon Lee in <em>The Crow</em> and he’d take care of the makeup. So I was like ‘Sure, Frank,’” Ray pauses, arching his eyebrows at Frank, who grins toothily and then bats his eyelashes. “Turns out Frankie didn’t actually take the time to buy the face paint for that like he said he was gonna, so I guess I’m just a guy in pants one size too small.”</p><p>“I mean, your dick looks great in those pants though,” Frank points out, and then tries to wrestle Ray’s arm away as Ray reaches over and firmly messes up Frank’s hair with a large hand on his skull.</p><p>“Yeah, enjoy it while it lasts, you little fucker. That’s the last time I trust you to take care of anything.” Ray doesn’t look like he’s particularly annoyed about it though, affectionate and easy with Frank like he always is. They’re pretty great roommates, Mikey thinks, with Frank’s frantic, vibrating energy and Ray’s solid, patient presence, focused and pushing forward like a heartbeat.</p><p>“Enjoy your dick while it lasts?” Frank exclaims, triumphantly breaking away from Ray’s hold on his head only to be immediately caught again as Ray clamps an arm around his chest and tickles him with his other hand. The laces on Ray’s pants pull tighter as he plants his feet wide to brace against Frank’s struggling, and Mikey looks at the ceiling and silently counts to five, trying to move past the surrealness of being in a room with people talking about the dick of the guy he’s been fingering himself over in the shower for the past five weeks. Mikey looks at Gerard’s face for guidance about what the normal person reaction might be, and recalls at once that Gerard isn’t normal. Gerard’s watching Frank’s writhing and laughter with an intrigued, predatory expression that makes Mikey grimace again.</p><p>“Uncle, uncle, fuck,” Frank giggles out, a little short of breath, and Ray releases him with a grin. “I’m an only child; you’ve got an unfair advantage.” Frank pouts and rubs his chest.</p><p>“Happy birthday, Frankie,” Gerard tells him in a quiet, light voice, looking down at Frank’s pout and then up at his eyes with a smile that’s heavy but sweet. Frank’s eyes light up and he chews on his lip as he looks back at Gerard and steps forward. He slowly extends his fingers and rubs at the skin between Gerard’s thumb and index finger.</p><p>“Presents?” Frank asks, the deep red paint on his lips and chin shining as his teeth pull at his lower lip, and Gerard laughs softly.</p><p>“Yeah, in the basement, come on and I’ll-”</p><p>“Nope,” Mikey says bluntly at the same time as Ray attempts a more diplomatic “Maybe later guys.” Mikey’s pretty sure that Gerard’s in possession of a concrete present in the basement and not a weird sex thing, but Frank and Gerard going down into the room with Gerard’s bed in it is the last thing that’s going to transpire on Mikey’s watch.</p><p>“We should probably head out if we’re gonna make it to the house before it gets really dark,” Ray tries again. “The map of the path that you drew is kinda vague, Gerard. And the rest stop where you wanna park is like twenty minutes’ drive away.”</p><p>Gerard looks out of the doorway at the approaching sunset and sighs theatrically.</p><p>“Okay, okay. You wanna put on shoes, Mikey? And my map was amazing,” Gerard adds, and then arches his eyebrows and looks down as Frank slips his fingers into his. Frank tilts his chin up at Gerard with a soft, defiant look, firmly weaving his bitten nails around Gerard’s long pale fingers and squeezing. Gerard’s surprised face turns pleased and Mikey sees him squeeze back.</p><p>“My boots are upstairs,” Mikey says, and then looks at Ray. “I’ll be like one minute, think you can make sure they don’t-”</p><p>Ray raises an eyebrow and makes an explicit gesture involving his fist and two fingers from his other hand, whistling two incongruously pleasant notes. Mikey laughs and groans as he nods, and Ray gives him a thumbs up while Frank grins and Gerard rolls his eyes and tugs Frank towards the living area.</p><p>Mikey is up the stairs, in and out of his room, and back with the others with his boots clutched by the laces within two minutes flat, because he understands from experience that it’s not really fair to leave anyone alone with Frank and Gerard for more than five minutes under most circumstances. Gerard is sitting on the sofa with Frank perched on one of his thighs eating candy from a bowl Donna had left out for trick-or-treating kids. Donna had told them the dreary weather predicted for Saturday was a perfect excuse for her and Don to have a weekend away, but Mikey suspects their mother just wasn’t any more willing than the next person to put up with Gerard’s annual creepy intensity about Halloween.</p><p>Ray’s sitting on the recliner and laughing at a ghost story Gerard’s telling them, so Mikey drops down on the sofa next to Frank and Gerard and begins pulling his boots on. They lace up to the mid-calf and Mikey had picked them up figuring they were the most pretty thing in his arsenal of various black boots. He’s cursing himself now as he realises what a mess he always leaves the laces in when he yanks at them to pull them off for sex or to pass out after a long night.</p><p>“Fucking laces,” Mikey mumbles, pulling uselessly at the laces, which appear to be passed through the wrong eyelets in five different spots. One of his feet is seated flat inside the boot where it should be, but when he tries to push his toes forward the last inch in the other shoe the laces are pulled too tight around his ankle. Mikey flushes, realising that Ray probably has a great view of him failing to <em>put on shoes</em>.</p><p>“Here.” Ray says, the sound close to Mikey’s face, and Mikey starts and pulls back from where he’s leaning over his boots, because he thought Ray was still sitting five feet away. “Those things are a motherfucker,” Ray says as he gently tugs the laces out of the eyelets. Mikey’s breath catches as he looks down at Ray’s fingers and Ray uses his thumb to push Mikey’s ankle flat in the loosened boot. “I got some practice with these,” Ray adds, inclining his head towards the thrift-store boots he’s wearing, which are laced up perfectly. Ray’s leaning on one knee on the floor between Mikey’s thighs, and Mikey’s flush deepens as he automatically spreads his thighs more to make room for Ray’s broad shoulders.</p><p>“You’re such a <em>mom</em>,” Frank snorts from Mikey’s side, popping the lollypop he’s just unwrapped into his mouth.</p><p>“Blow me, Iero,” Ray tells him, looking up at Frank with an easy-going smile, and Mikey watches as Ray’s long fingers continue to deftly re-lace the boots without him looking at them. It reminds him of watching Ray play guitar, how amazing his hands look as they trail up and down the neck, the perfect way the pads of his fingers tug and press at the strings with only the occasional look down. Mikey loves the way Ray’s eyes light up any time Mikey asks about the chords to a particular song, loves the way Ray pauses for a moment, the position of his fingers turning all tentative, like he’s practising the song in his head, and then plays it for him with that soft, accommodating smile. It makes Mikey want to climb into his lap and wrap his fingers around Ray’s wrist, lick at those long fingers and take them inside his mouth until they’re all wet and glistening. A muscle in Mikey’s leg twitches as he shoves that mental picture away and Ray looks up at him.</p><p>“Shit, did I pinch the skin? My bad, Mikey.” The fingers of Ray’s left hand press softly into the offending muscle just above Mikey’s boot, feeling Mikey’s skin through his jeans. Mikey looks down at Ray’s concerned eyes and his lightly probing fingers and wishes he could control the flush spreading up his throat.</p><p>“No, I, uh-” Mikey starts. <em>Real articulate</em>, he thinks, wants to put his face inside his dress. “Cramp.” Ray nods at the lame excuse and digs his fingers a little harder into Mikey’s calf, working the line of muscle in persistent little circles of pressure.</p><p>“So are they gonna fuck?” Frank asks loudly and Mikey jumps.</p><p>“What?” Mikey and Ray say at once, Ray pulling his hand away from the fabric.</p><p>Frank rolls his eyes.</p><p>“You weren’t listening,” he tells them through a mouthful of pink lollipop, and then takes it out with an audible pop and looks at Gerard. “Are the ghost and the guy gonna fuck?”</p><p>Gerard raises his eyebrows and smiles, taking Frank’s lollipop out of his fingers and licking a stripe over it. Mikey realises he must’ve been still going with his ghost story once Mikey was distracted, speaking in that low, quiet tone that Gerard uses to be secretive with people he likes.</p><p>“I’ll tell you later.” Gerard grins as Frank makes a protesting noise and pushes the lollipop back between Frank’s lips. Frank’s eyes get dark and provocative as Gerard’s fingers linger on the stick, his lips forming a sticky ‘O’ around the candy before he smirks and pushes his head forward. Ray must have exactly the same thought as Mikey because he finishes lacing Mikey’s boots with astonishing speed.</p><p>“You wanna drive, Gerard?” Ray asks as he straightens up and cracks his spine. Gerard looks up from where he looks like he was opening his mouth to say something to Frank, lips in that sugary smile that curls into a snarl at the corner that Mikey wishes he wasn’t aware of.</p><p>“Yeah, I wanna,” Gerard pats his car keys in his jeans pocket and Frank climbs off his lap.</p><p>“Shotgun!” Frank shouts, and Mikey glares at him.</p><p>“You guys are banned from talking about your weird ghost porn on the drive,” he tells them resolutely, and Gerard makes a non-committal sound.</p><p>“We’re gonna have a much better time in the back anyway,” Ray says, and then looks embarrassed for some reason. “I mean I have good music on my phone. And we don’t have to watch Frank give head to candy.”</p><p>Mikey pictures Ray panting in the dark backseat of a parked car, plush lips wet and his big hand up under Mikey’s dress.</p><p>“Sure,” Mikey murmurs, looking down at the floor. He feels the lingering ghost of Ray’s fingers pressing into his shin and shivers. <em>Fuck.</em></p><p> </p><p>*</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter got huge so I've split it in half and there will be four chapters now. What possessed me to write over 6000 words of these guys idiot-lusting over each other in a car is a mystery, but I'm attached to it as a concept. I promise they actually get into the fucking spooky house in the next chapter. </p><p>I've added a couple of new tags about horror themes etc. that come up in this chapter just to be safe in case that wasn't adequately implied by the title so please check 'em out. </p><p>I have no idea why I gave them glass Coke bottles.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“So what’s the deal with this place?” Ray asks once they’ve been on the road for five minutes. He addresses the question to Gerard, because Mikey’s looking out of the window and ignoring him. The promise of Mikey’s presence had been a strong factor in Ray letting Frank persuade him to tag along on this date, but he’d assumed that Mikey’s participation was voluntary. Ray tries not to look too deflated as he watches Mikey nurse his Diet Coke in his lap, wondering if he’s only here because Gerard nagged him into it.</p><p>“It’s like a slutty dead girl thing, right?” Frank asks, sucking noisily at his own Coke. Ray thinks Frank might be laying it on a bit thick with the whole reminding Gerard he has a mouth thing. He’s pretty sure it’s surplus to requirements given the way Gerard already reacts to Frank. It’s different to the way Ray’s watched Gerard act around other girls and guys he’s been with, which generally oscillates between withdrawn, self-conscious lust and drunk but persuasive seduction.</p><p>Gerard doesn’t curl in on himself around Frank, but it isn’t like he’s putting on that affected charm for him either, at least from where Ray’s sitting. The way that Gerard had curved his fingers around Frank’s thigh as Frank leant forward to play with the car radio was solid but light, as if to say it wasn’t a big deal if Frank wanted to displace them. Frank’s thigh is stock-still under Gerard’s palm now, and that’s different for Frank as well, Ray realises as he looks at Frank’s shoulders, which are shivering slightly with contained energy. He’s never seen Frank want to be still for anyone.</p><p>“Slutty dead girl thing,” Gerard snorts and then adopts a coy look as he blows smoke from his cigarette out of the driver’s side window. “So articulate, Frankie, you got me all flustered with that poetic shit right there.”</p><p>Frank turns his face towards Gerard with fake wounded innocence all over it.</p><p>“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Frank tells him, “I thought we were letting you pretend you’re the only one who can tell a story because you love the sound of your own voice.” Frank widens his eyes. “Please don’t punish me Gee, I promise I won’t call the ghost lady slutty again.” Frank’s expression collapses into a broad grin as Gerard chokes on smoke and starts cackling.</p><p>Mikey’s looking at them now. Ray notices when his eyes trail sideways to Mikey, which they’ve been doing without his permission a lot lately. Mikey looks curious as he watches Frank, and Ray wonders if it’s about the pet name, because he’s never heard anyone except Mikey call Gerard ‘Gee’ either. Gerard doesn’t look surprised, which makes Ray think it might not be the first time Frank’s called him that, that Frank’s tested it out in some private moment. Mikey tilts his head sideways, gaze moving between Frank and his brother, and then he licks at a drop of Coke at the corner of his lip and looks at his lap, nodding his head to the Muse track playing on the radio. Ray’s eyes trail over the sharp, pretty line of his chin and the moisture clinging to the pink cupid’s bow of his lips, and Gerard’s response to Frank’s teasing is lost on him.</p><p>Ray’s always amazed by how different Mikey is from his brother when they’re so close and spend so much time around each other. And Mikey’s the <em>most</em> different about sex, Ray thinks, a guilty flush creeping into his cheeks as he looks at the way the meat of Mikey’s skinny thigh flexes as he taps his boot in time with the bassline. Mikey’s dress is shorter on his long frame than it’d be on a girl’s, and it’s ridden up as he’s sat and spread his thighs. Ray sincerely wishes his brain wasn’t so absorbed in trying to work out what Mikey’s skin would look like under it without the pants, with Ray’s hand rucking the dress up around his arching hips. Ray tries not to think about what Mikey’s probably done in that dress with Pete, with girls, because yeah, Mikey’s attitude to sex is <em>really </em>not the same as Gerard’s.</p><p>It’s impossible to go to a bar or a party with Mikey and not notice the way that he interacts with the long line of people who want to take him home. There’s none of Gerard’s reticence as he trails after a pretty girl he can’t believe wants him, and none of Gerard’s delighted, almost menacing lash-fluttering as he gets his hooks into a macho guy who’s avidly watching him suck on the cherry from his glass. It’s pretty clear that Mikey understands that people want him naked on top of them, and underneath them. But Mikey just watches them lust over him and waits.</p><p>It’s a sweet kind of torture, Ray thinks, watching Mikey smile and tilt his head, like he’s vaguely intrigued by the girls and guys flirting with him, watching him smirk and nod and play with his belt or the edge of his top with his long fingers, luring their eyes without making any effort. Ray’s pretty good at brushing aside the occasional pangs of disappointment that Mikey was never like that with him, not even at first, understands that he isn’t Mikey’s type anyway. Mikey went straight from an unfazed assent to Ray’s presence, wandering over to the sofa and inclining his head towards Ray as he drummed his fingers on Gerard’s shoulders, to casual, affectionate touches, fingers curling on Ray’s upper arm as he laughed.</p><p>And that’s nice, Ray reminds himself. It’s not like he isn’t genuinely pleased that Mikey’s comfortable with him. It’s not like he doesn’t want to be Mikey’s friend just because sometimes spending time with him makes him wake up with his cock thick and uncomfortable in his lap, cursing and trying to rub one out in his dorm bed with Frank snoring lightly on the other side of the room. Mikey has this sudden, almost shy laugh that comes out around Ray and Gerard sometimes that Ray hasn’t heard once in front of Pete or any of the people Mikey lets wind their pretty limbs around him. Ray might not have really wanted Mikey to see him like another older brother, but if that’s the way it’s played out, that sweet, private laugh is a perk that he wouldn’t trade for anything.</p><p>Ray’s gaze lifts from Mikey’s thigh to his face with that dumb, weak smile he’s been trying and failing not to give him lately, and he realises Mikey’s looking at him and his lips are moving.</p><p>“-think Ray was asking you a question,” Mikey is saying, looking at Ray’s face but tilting his chin towards Gerard. Ray forces a wider smile and lets his hair fall over his face, hoping Mikey doesn’t notice the pink in his cheeks from getting caught looking at Mikey’s thighs.</p><p>“Ah, right,” Gerard takes another drag from his cigarette and then starts again with a grandiose air. “La Dame de la Fleur Rouge.” He adds a flourish of his hand to the last word and Frank gives him an affectionate eye roll. “The New York society dame who made a deal with the Devil.”</p><p>“For what, a place in Jersey in the woods?” Frank asks with a sceptical frown. Gerard gives him an imperious look and carries on.</p><p>“The tale goes, that at the turn of the century there was a lovely but vain and cruel woman who was the darling of New York high society. She was so physically lovely she was almost <em>flawless</em>. Long black hair, big violet eyes, cheekbones that could cut glass.” Gerard exhales and weaves his hand through the smoke in a vague arc that Ray assumes indicates breasts and a waist. “The whole porcelain doll package. The only physical flaw she had was a dark, red birthmark. Right here,” he adds, trading hands on the wheel and reaching back to rub his thumb up and down above Frank’s left nipple, “high on her left breast.” Ray holds back a chuckle as he watches Frank’s cynical look vanish and his breath catch under the red paint adorning his throat. “And that flaw itself was lovely in a macabre way, like a twisted, bleeding flower.”</p><p>Gerard pauses for a moment and puts both hands back on the steering wheel as he takes a sharp turn.</p><p>“Do you have any birthmarks, Frankie?” Gerard asks, as if he’s only now wondering about this as he places his hand back on Frank’s thigh, dark nails pressing into the skin where the fabric’s cut.</p><p>“Yeah,” Frank says, soft and a little breathless, and Ray wonders if anyone makes Mikey sound like that, needy and fraying at those pretty edges. Ray swallows.</p><p>“So what did she want from the Devil if she was so rich and pretty or whatever?” Mikey asks, and Gerard nods in acknowledgement of the question as he opens his mouth and lets the smoke pooled on his tongue flow out.</p><p>“The usual stuff people want. Adoration. Lust. Some unattainable person to fall to their knees.” Mikey flushes and looks away and Ray’s eyebrows arch. He wants to know what that’s about, wants to know if Mikey’s more serious about Pete than he thought. Ray wanted to hate Pete at first, with his pretty smirking eyes and hard abs and the way he was allowed to wrap his hand around Mikey’s hip at a party with anyone watching. With the way he was allowed a lot more than that, allowed stuff that made Ray’s face feel too red and hot as Mikey passed him in the corridor with his lips and his eyelashes wet. The problem was that Pete was a pretty affable dude once you talked to him, talkative and lazily affectionate and charming. Ray understands why Mikey would want adoration from a guy like that.</p><p>“<em>La Dame </em>admired a man who was just as lovely and vain and cruel as she was,” Gerard elaborates. “And when she professed that admiration to him, he laughed and turned her away, said he wanted a woman who was <em>perfect</em>, not <em>almost </em>perfect, with that livid red mark on her pretty white chest.” Gerard’s fingernails leave little pink indents in Frank’s thighs as he curls his fingers and his lips look pale in the shadows from the trees they’re passing now, cigarette dangling from the fingers on the wheel as he’s absorbed in his story.</p><p>“The idea of not having the adoration and <em>desire </em>of anyone who saw her tortured her pride to distraction. She spent a year trying in vain to remove that red flower with everything from poisonous beauty powders to whispered incantations as she rubbed her breasts with the blood of doves. At last she took a carving knife to her breast and cut the birthmark away, but the red flower only grew back darker and redder than before. And the people around her started to murmur that it was the Devil’s mark.” Gerard smiles and squeezes Frank’s thigh. “So she prayed to the Devil.”</p><p>Frank squirms in his seat as Gerard’s new grip pushes his wrist closer to the crotch of Frank’s pants. Ray personally thinks that Frank getting an awkward boner during a story involving dead doves would be Frank’s just desserts for the lace-up pants fiasco, but Mikey is crossing his legs and jiggling his thigh with an uncomfortable curl to his lips as he watches them, so Ray tries to avert the problem.</p><p>“You’re being pretty rough for Frankie’s first time up there,” he says, arching his eyebrows with a pointed look at Frank’s lap when Gerard looks at him in the rear-view mirror. “Like you’re not at least gonna put on “Be My Baby” or something? That’s rough.”</p><p>Mikey snorts and Ray feels a stupid pleased flush rise in his cheeks. Frank stiffens and gets a much deeper flush on his pale face, looking a rosy pink under the thin layer of green face paint.</p><p>“Not my first time,” Frank mutters, flipping Ray off and then folding his arms. “And “Be My Baby”’s not a bad song.”</p><p>“I like “Be My Baby”,” Gerard says, and Ray notices that he’s blushing too, a strip of pink below the black glitter bar across his eyes and his fingers withdrawn from Frank’s thigh and tightly wrapped around the wheel.</p><p>“Oh my <em>God</em>,” Mikey groans. “Can you please just finish your story? You guys can do any weird stuff you want to each other with “Be My Baby” playing when I don’t have to be stuck in this car with you.”</p><p>Gerard clears his throat.</p><p>“So she prayed to the Devil. And the Devil came to her and asked her what such a lovely creature could want that she didn’t already have. All she asked was for him to make that red flower vanish so that she could attain perfection, and she would perform any favour he wanted. The Devil was flattered by such a generous offer for such a small favour and he agreed. All she had to do was lay with him for one night and he’d take away that flaw <em>and</em> make her the object of any man’s dreams. And she was, after a fashion. Turns out having the Devil inside her gave her some unusual abilities, and some unusual,” Gerard taps his painted nails on the steering wheel and smirks, “appetites.”</p><p>“The lady started withdrawing more and more to her hunting lodge, secreted away in the New Jersey forest, and all the men who came to court her started vanishing. They say the man who’d once spurned her was found with his pretty body laid out naked on the forest floor, face trapped in a rictus of twisted pleasure and his heart ripped out of his chest. And just above the gaping wound there was a birthmark that no one recalled him having: a twisted, bleeding flower.”</p><p>Gerard pauses and looks at a road sign, the dark shadow of a branch outside the car passing over his face slowly so that a tiny tendril looks like it slips inside his parted lips.</p><p>“That was the last that anyone really heard of La Dame de la Fleur Rouge, but rumour has it that if you can find an abandoned old hunting lodge in the New Jersey forest, after it gets dark, the perfect woman is right there waiting for you, with her jaws wide open.”</p><p>“Slutty dead girl thing,” Frank says with an air of finality.</p><p>Mikey gives Gerard a flat look and then points a long, pretty finger at him.</p><p>“If I get molested by a ghost at this place, you’re paying for my therapy.”</p><p>Frank snorts.</p><p>“I like how the fucking is the part you’re worried about. Like you’re cool with fucking a solid fifty-five percent of the New Jersey scene but the prettiest ghost in town is a hard pass.”</p><p>“I’m not.” Mikey flushes and looks daggers at Frank with his skinny arms folded across his chest. Ray thinks about lightly prising Mikey’s arms apart and pressing their chests together, sucking softly at Mikey’s lower lip. He looks at the floor, feeling embarrassed and wishing Mikey wasn’t more relentlessly pretty every time he saw him.</p><p>“Oh, like it’s Pete Wentz’s dick all the time for you now?” Frank asks, looking genuinely intrigued. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like with him, hey. I mean like people flock to get with that guy. Does his dick taste like sugar or something?”</p><p>“Why don’t you suck it and find out?” Mikey asks, rolling his eyes. There’s something a little tight in his voice and his face, which is odd, because Mikey’s promiscuity has been fair game for Frank’s affectionate ribbing in the past. “And I haven’t talked to him for like five weeks,” Mikey adds, muttering into his neck. He looks back at Ray as Ray looks over at him, pink skin and shiny black paint dipping into the hollows in his cheeks as if he’s sucking on the inside of his lip. Ray wants to make sure Mikey’s alright and he wants to learn how to take away that tight pressure in his face and he wants to push his thumb between Mikey’s lips, wants Mikey to <em>suck </em>just like that, <em>God</em>.</p><p>“I dunno about that story,” Ray says loudly, looking away. “I can’t tell if the moral was ‘be careful what you wish for’ or ‘bang the Devil so you can move to the woods and murder people with impunity.’”</p><p>Gerard shrugs and reaches back to get his lipgloss out of the storage compartment between the front seats.</p><p>“It’s not my story.”</p><p>“Sure it isn’t, Gee,” Frank tells him, though he looks distracted by the path of the wet stick of gloss to Gerard’s lips. Gerard shakes his head as he drags the gloss back and forth.</p><p>“A guy I was talking to on a forum a while back told me about the place.”</p><p>“Wait what?” Ray asks in alarm at the same time as Mikey looks at Gerard and says ‘Like a stranger?” Mikey’s tone is flat and it sounds less like he’s asking a question than just confirming his belief that Gerard’s done something weird again.</p><p>Frank is looking at Gerard incredulously.</p><p>“So is this the real scary part of the story, like you’re just leading us out into woods at night to a place that some creep who’s probably been perving on you online directed you to which he thought would be a perfect spot to murder you and cut up the body?”</p><p>Gerard looks unconcerned.</p><p>“Murdering four adult men at once seems pretty ambitious.”</p><p>“Uh, did you tell him you planned on going with us?” Ray asks, and Frank thrusts a pointed thumb in Ray’s direction.</p><p>“What he said. Also, what’s Mikey gonna do, look at him witheringly? The minute his glasses fall off he’s helpless.”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Mikey offers. “You’re five-foot-six.” Mikey still looks flushed and Ray wants to reach out and touch his arm.</p><p>“Guys, relax,” Gerard says, smacking his lips together and thrusting the lipgloss stick back into its tube. “I didn’t tell him I was going anywhere. And Ray will protect us, isn’t that right big guy?” He twists his head around for a second and flutters his eyelashes at Ray.</p><p>“Uh,” Ray says.</p><p>Frank pushes his head back into the seat and whines.</p><p>“I don’t wanna die on my birthday.”</p><p>“Yeah, this is a pretty weird place for a first date, boys,” Ray adds, and Frank looks back at him and sticks his pink tongue out, like any concerns over his impending doom take a backseat to defending Gerard’s proposed first date from anyone else’s criticism. The way Frank’s pupils dilate and his eyes widen as he looks at Gerard’s face looks so lovesick and sweet that Ray’s teeth hurt a little.</p><p>“What did you think we’d do?” Frank asks. “Like he should’ve picked me up outside my church with me in a little bridesmaid’s dress and got me a cake with sixteen candles?”</p><p>Mikey frowns.</p><p>“Why do you think the only first date options are haunted house or Molly Ringwald movie?”</p><p>“You fucked Pete Wentz in a Denny’s bathroom while the rest of us were eating pancakes,” Frank grins. “Are you like an expert on normal dates?” It’s Ray’s turn to flush as he realises he hadn’t joined the dots that night: the brightness in Mikey’s cheeks under the shitty lighting as he sat down across from him, the gleam of sweat on Pete’s collarbone as Pete slid into the booth after him and grinned, said he was starving now as he ordered a large plate of barbeque fries.</p><p>“I’m not dating Pete Wentz, Frankie,” Mikey mumbles, looking at his lap.</p><p>Gerard makes a face.</p><p>“Why am I Jake Ryan in this scenario?”</p><p>“Because it’s my birthday,” Frank pouts, and Gerard sighs.</p><p>“Ugh fine, but for the record I’d look pretty as hell with red hair in a dress.”</p><p>“So pretty,” Frank agrees dreamily. “Jake Ryan’s kinda hot though.”</p><p>“I might hate-fuck Jake Ryan,” Gerard considers, chewing on his lip. “Like a corrupt-the-jock thing. Wear a cheerleader outfit and play with my hair and make him freak out about wanting it.”</p><p>Frank leans his head on the headrest with his face turned towards Gerard and leers at him, eyelashes heavy. Mikey looks at him and groans.</p><p>“Could you <em>not</em> fantasise about my brother in a cheerleader skirt in this confined space?”</p><p>Frank bats his eyelashes at Mikey with a shit-eating grin.</p><p>“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“I can hear the gears in your porno-brain turning, that’s how fucking loudly you’re fantasising.”</p><p>Gerard smirks and licks at his lipgloss-sticky lip.</p><p>“If we’re gonna be in a Molly Ringwald movie I’d prefer <em>The Breakfast Club</em> anyway.”</p><p>“You wanna be in detention with me, huh?” Frank smirks, and Mikey grimaces again.</p><p>“Ray could be the kinda sweet jock dude,” Gerard muses.</p><p>Ray frowns at him.</p><p>“Uh, pretty sure if anyone’s the jock it’s me,” Frank tells him, “I’m the only one who’s pretty close to understanding how to play football. I think you’re the delinquent kid and Mikey’s like the Molly Ringwald princess.”</p><p>“You know that means Mikey and Gerard bang later?” Ray points out, raising an eyebrow. Mikey sighs and rubs his temples.</p><p>“Why are we stuck with the original script?” Frank asks sulkily. “Who says in our <em>Breakfast Club </em>the criminal doesn’t fall for a pretty hardcore kid with a lip ring who breaks into the school on a Saturday to get the gear he left in his locker?”</p><p>“I am not role-playing that with you,” Gerard informs him, but there’s a happy, fever-pink tint on his cheeks as he glances over at Frank’s lip ring, and Ray watches Frank notice him looking and suck on the little piece of silver. The atmosphere leaking from the front seat is thick with a dizzy puppy love and first-time lust like Ray hasn’t felt since his first girlfriend leaned in and whispered that she wanted him to fuck her. It makes him feel turned on by proximity, a little woozy with Mikey stretching and restless next to him in his tight, shiny dress. Ray has to remind himself to participate in the conversation.</p><p>“I’m more of a <em>Pretty in Pink</em> guy,” he tries. “I mean the guys are all kind of terrible but it has the best soundtrack.”</p><p>“With The Smiths.” Mikey looks at him and smiles with a bright, sweet face that makes Ray melt like caster sugar in warm butter.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out a little breathy. Mikey’s still looking at him, and then his lips part just a fraction, the way that Ray’s watched them do when Mikey’s just figured out a chord progression.</p><p>“It’s cinnamon.” Mikey says. “That’s what you smell like. Cinnamon and sugar.” Mikey blinks at him, looking almost startled, cheeks and nose pink around the bright black paint from the blood swirling under his pale skin. The air rushing in through Gerard’s open window is getting colder as darkness falls, and Ray looks at Mikey and thinks about how regularly he catches Mikey shivering because he’s not dressed for the weather. He pictures Mikey naked under the covers with him in his dorm bed, the muffled sound Mikey would make as Ray curled an arm around his waist and pulled him into his chest, how Mikey would rub his cold feet into Ray’s calves as Ray pressed his mouth against the cool skin at the back of his neck, breathing into him, making him warm. </p><p>“I um, yeah,” Ray says, pulse racing as he tries to push past the pictures in his head and work out if there was a reference to the way he smelled in the conversation that had gone over his head. “It’s my shampoo. My bad if it smells too strong. I mean, if you can smell it over the cigarette…” he adds stupidly, skin crawling with embarrassment as Mikey continues staring at him.</p><p>“No, I, uh-” Mikey starts and blinks again. “I like it.”</p><p>“Oh.” Ray says, trying not to look stupidly flattered. “That’s cool.”</p><p>“Yeah, you smell sweet,” Mikey says, playing with his fingers and looking away. “And <em>Pretty in Pink</em> totally has the best soundtrack,” he adds, talking fast. “And the guys <em>were</em> all lame. She should’ve hooked up with James Spader because he was the most attractive and they were all pretty much jerks anyway.”</p><p>“Yeah, he was the prettiest one in the room at that prom,” Ray agrees. “I probably would’ve gone home with him.”</p><p>That gets Frank’s attention. He twists around in his seat at the same moment that one of the tyres hits a pothole and lurches forward in the air above the centre compartment. Gerard’s fingers lift and then waver in the air above Frank’s sternum, as if he’s resisting his urge to put a protective arm across Frank’s chest.</p><p>“You’d take James Spader home over Molly Ringwald?” Frank’s looking at him with the tunnel vision face that he gets when he’s intrigued by something and isn’t going to let it go. Mikey’s looking at him too, and Ray realises he might’ve made a miscalculation agreeing to something which involved a long drive with the two of them in the same car.</p><p>“I mean…yeah,” he says, aware of the colour still lingering in his face as he casts his eyes around the backseat of the car for something to look at that isn’t Mikey. A wave of colourful wrappers is spilling out of a torn-open pack of Jolly Ranchers on the floor and Ray looks at them and worries at his lip. He thinks about the night on the Ways’ sofa that Mikey shoved seven cherry ones past his lips at once, because they were his favourite and Gerard had been sneaking them into his lap for himself. It was funny, the way that Mikey’s cheeks bulged as he poked his tongue out at Gerard, and Ray had laughed softly as he listened to Gerard bitching at Mikey about how he never paid for candy or cigarettes anyway.</p><p>It was funny, but it was also hypnotic, and Ray found himself flushing at the visible push of the sweets into Mikey’s face from inside, at the sugar and spit-shiny lips he could barely press together with his mouth full like that. They were sharing a blanket, with Gerard partially draped over Ray’s side and Mikey’s toes nudging Ray’s other thigh where Mikey had his legs curled up under him, and Ray had been paralysed with mortification as he felt his cock filling out a little under the layer of cosy fabric and the popcorn bowl in his lap. Gerard’s thigh was pressing down on his and Ray had watched <em>Fright Night</em> with a glazed panic for a full five minutes as Gerard reached into the popcorn bowl and Mikey leaned his head on his shoulder. Ray could feel the pull of Mikey’s jaw muscles as Mikey sucked and licked softly around the hard candy, and when Mikey finally got it all down his lips were stained cherry red around his little vampire canines.</p><p>Ray crosses his hands in his lap and tries to back-pedal his mental landscape into something less sexy, like that time that Frank ate a bunch of dairy because a girl he liked had baked for him, and then spent all night bleating like a lamb between his stomach’s drainpipe gurgles until Ray cursed him out and stumbled over to rub his belly for him in the dark. Ray grimaces and looks up at Frank in the front seat. Frank looks absolutely delighted.</p><p>“Toro, you dark horse,” Frank giggles, letting out a whistle. Ray sighs and steals a sideways glance at Mikey. Mikey’s looking dead at him.</p><p>“So is he like…” Mikey starts, playing with the neck of his Coke bottle with his fingers again, “that one guy you’d go gay for? Or like, whatever that thing is with that rule straight guys have.”</p><p>Ray looks at Mikey’s idly twisting fingers, pink with cold on the bottle glass, and wants to dissolve into the seat leather. <em>Of course he assumes you’re straight</em>, Ray realises, threading his hands together in a fist in his lap and squeezing at the painful embarrassment. He thinks about how boring he must look to someone like Mikey: Mikey with his painted-on jeans and Pete’s hands up inside his hoodie in the pit at gigs, grinding against Mikey’s ass and laughing against his neck with his whiskey eyes all bright; Mikey with his eyelashes fanning out of his smoky eyeliner and a different girl padding down the stairs from his bedroom on any given week, black hair, blue hair, blonde hair with magenta streaks spilling over their shoulders and their polite smiles as they pass Ray in the doorway. And Ray thinks about girls like that, thinks about that pretty dyed hair with its shock of dark roots tickling his spread thighs as they suck his cock, thinks about the way their tits bounce under thin singlets as they descend the stairs and the way they’d bounce like that as they rode him all gushy and tight in his lap. It just isn’t all he thinks about anymore.</p><p>“Oh, I’m not-” he starts, blushing furiously under his hair, and pauses at a soft laugh from Gerard.</p><p>“What?” Mikey asks, looking at Gerard. Gerard makes eye contact with Ray in the rear-view mirror with a question mark in his eyes and Ray sighs and gives him a small nod.</p><p>“I mean, you can only get dragged to so many of Gerard’s art school parties without, you know,” Ray tries again, raising his eyebrows and hoping he’s passing as more jocular and light-hearted than he really feels with Mikey’s gaze shifting between him and Gerard.</p><p>“Touching a dick?” Gerard suggests with an eyebrow arch of his own and a slightly smug look on his face.</p><p>“Something like that,” Ray laughs and cringes at how high-pitched it comes out. Mikey’s staring at him like he’s grown another head. Ray makes a vague prayer to anyone who’s listening that it isn’t because Mikey’s somehow looking at his thoughts.</p><p>Mikey wasn’t the first guy he looked at and wanted to touch. There was the usual first-year-of-college fumbling with other guys, slippery lips from drinking bad wine out of silver bags and the sweet relieved laughter of realising the person you’re with wants to lick their fist and wrap it around you without any preamble. Ray still preferred girls, probably would have taken his time to pursue it any further than the hands-pulling-in-each-other’s-laps-in-late-night-films phase with guys. And then Mikey Way wandered into his life with his long fingers and the pretty cut of his jawline and his glasses framing his light, intent eyes and Ray wondered about what other things he should try.</p><p>The first time Gerard introduced them Mikey looked like he hadn’t been to bed the past night. Gerard had brought him along on one of his missions to inveigle free coffee from Ray when he was working the early shift at the least shitty on-campus café. Mikey’s hair was plastered to his forehead under the large faux-fur lined hood of his jacket, which was open at the front so that Ray could see the lines of his pelvic muscle between his Misfits tee and his plastic girl’s belt, a little bit of sweat glittering there from his late Saturday night.</p><p>“This is my baby brother,” Gerard had said as Mikey nudged at his soft waist with his bony elbow. Mikey blinked up at him with soft morning eyes, that splash of brown in his right eye warm and bright under drooping eyelids.</p><p>“I’m Mikey.”</p><p>Ray had looked at him and thought<em> Oh</em> and <em>shit</em>, though he didn’t start to understand why until Mikey was giggling and clutching his belly at Ray teasing Gerard weeks later at their house, twisting his limbs towards Ray on the basement sofa with a soft snort of breath through his nose that raised the tiny hairs on Ray’s upper arm. He didn’t <em>really</em> understand it, understand it with a shamefaced, squirming finality, until he had an art school acquaintance of Gerard’s pinned underneath him, with a skinny waist and a flat chest and long parted legs and a cock, laying all rosy and hard on his concave stomach, and all Ray could think as he ground out an orgasm deep inside him was <em>Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.</em> Ray’s trying to beat himself up over it less than he has been if Mikey’s face appears in his fantasies when he’s alone pumping his cock under the blankets, or when he gingerly trails his fingers lower under his balls, not pushing in so far, just pressing. He knows a lot of people <em>wonder</em> about Mikey Way.</p><p>“That skinny blond guy from my art history class really wanted to turn you out, huh,” Gerard smirks, gesturing at Frank to pass him his Coke. “The one in the Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt. All like whispering in your ear and touching your chest and shit. Pretty sure you guys went missing at like quarter past one.”</p><p>“No way,” Frank grins, pulling it out of his lips with a pop and passing it to Gerard. “You’re telling me you regularly hook up, with dudes, at parties, and I had no idea? And not once have you tried to fuck with my pretty face? I’m an amazing fuck, Toro. I’m hurt.” Frank’s feral grin is stretching his lips thin, and he only looks partially distracted by Gerard’s mouth latching onto the Coke bottle over the faint glistening layer of Frank’s saliva. Ray rubs a hand across his forehead and groans.</p><p>“No, Frank, it was like, a few times. And if I bone you will you promise to shut up for like five hours once in a while? I want a fair deal.”</p><p>“Sure, if you’re boning me for five hours.” Frank manages to shrug, pucker his lips at Ray and look like he thinks this new information is extremely funny all at once. Ray gives him the finger.</p><p>“Ray and I kissed at a party one time,” Gerard announces.</p><p><em>“What?”</em> Frank and Mikey ask, shoulders twitching towards Gerard like he’s pulling them both by wires. Ray tries to vanish into the recesses of his leather jacket.</p><p>“Yeah, Toro has pretty soft lips,” Gerard adds conversationally, rubbing his thumb on his bottom lip and then wiping the sticky lipgloss on his top. “Like a marshmallow. Super fun when you’re drunk.”</p><p>Frank’s looking at Gerard with his lips parted in cartoonish shock and big stroppy puppy eyes. It looks like it takes him a minute to work out how to pull up with his jaw muscles and then he turns to the backseat.</p><p>“Did you touch <em>his</em> dick?” Frank asks Ray with an indignant look.</p><p>“What, no!” Ray protests. Frank looks a little pink and flustered, with possibly the tiniest flicker of hurt in his wide eyes. Ray softens and resists the urge to flip him the bird again. “Gerard wanted to impress some girl and like, accosted me.”</p><p>There’s a long pause, during which Ray seriously considers not going to a party ever again.</p><p>“You kissed Gerard,” Mikey says slowly.</p><p>“Uh huh, he bit me,” Gerard tells him, tapping his index finger into the fleshy part of his bottom lip again. “Right here.”</p><p>Mikey makes an odd noise, almost a whine, and Ray looks over to check that his glasses haven’t fallen on the floor. Mikey has this distressed little noise he makes when his glasses fall off and he can’t reach them that sends Ray diving for them like they’re the last bullet in a gunfight. The way that Mikey blinks up at him when he presses them into his fingers, just like he did the first time Gerard introduced them, makes Ray’s insides stutter and gush pleasure signals to his brain, like he’s bitten into something familiar and sweet.</p><p>“I was surprised,” Ray mumbles. He’s flushed and he feels lost, because Mikey’s glasses are perched on the narrow bridge of his nose, but Mikey’s looking at the floor like his vision is impaired. Ray clears his throat and Mikey looks up at him, bites his lip and slow blinks like Ray’s meant to pass him something. Ray understands that Gerard and Mikey are intertwined in a way that he and Frank will never grasp, locked up with one another like there are invisible charm bracelets dangling from their wrists, matching padlock hearts that probably lost any release mechanism they might’ve had the moment that Mikey was old enough to look at Gerard and talk. It might be uncomfortable for Mikey, Ray thinks now, watching Gerard get close with Frank, get restless and gentle with him and myriad of other things he <em>isn’t</em> with other people. Ray wonders if maybe it’s like having one of your limbs immersed in something. He hopes Mikey doesn’t worry that he and Gerard are building a closed circuit like that just because they sucked face at a party from which Ray’s most lucid memory is that someone had great cheese puffs.</p><p>There’s a lull in the conversation and Gerard’s sigh as he lights another cigarette is loud over the static pouring from the radio. Frank’s looking up out of the window at the thin slivers of sunset that look like pinkish-red grime in the Jersey skyline. He’s playing with his lip ring with his fingers and looking insecure. Ray thinks about how dumb it is, wants to tell Frank about another party: the one where Gerard leaned over on a porch swing, planting his face on Ray’s chest and almost falling into Ray’s lap because he was so intoxicated, and mumbled “Do you think Frank understands like…that his voice is so pretty.” Ray looked at Frank’s passed out face when he finally got back to his dorm, Frank with saliva on his chin and pieces of hair sticking out like unwashed black stalactites, and felt his eyes crinkle with a smile. It was nice that Gerard liked Frank so much he still wanted him to understand he was <em>good </em>when he was a fifteen-minute drive away from puking vodka and Pop-Tart frosting into the gutter.</p><p>When Ray looks away from Frank, Mikey’s watching him with a light frown.</p><p>“What’s up?” Mikey asks. “You got all space-Toro for a minute.”</p><p>“I was thinking about some of the stuff I’ve seen Gerard throw up post-parties. I think it was like, salsa one time and it looked like really fake horror gore.”</p><p>Mikey scrunches his nose up.</p><p>“Ugh, it’s the worst when it’s corn chips, the little pieces get all over stuff. Washing corn chips out of your hair for you at four a.m. sucks,” he adds, digging into the back of Gerard’s chair with the toe of his boot. </p><p>“I love you too, Mikey Way,” Gerard coos, turning his head back and blowing a plume of smoke at Mikey with a grin. “You’re welcome for me pretending that weird porn you were browsing was mine when Mom found it, Mikey Way.”</p><p>Mikey shoots Gerard a withering smile and mutters something under his breath that involves the words “you” and “strap-on” and “freak”, which makes Frank’s ears perk up a bit. Ray’s phone digs into the soft part of his belly as they go over a bump and he fishes it out of the front of his jacket.</p><p>“Oh hey, I promised you backseat fun,” Ray tells Mikey, and then wants to put his entire fist in his mouth. Mikey stares at him and Ray waves a headphone at him and holds up his phone by way of explanation. “Smashing Pumpkins?”</p><p>“Oh!” Mikey’s eyes light up with recognition. “Yeah, please.” His fingers rub into Ray’s guitar calluses as he takes the bud from his fingers. Mikey’s whole face lights up with pleasure as “Tonight, Tonight” starts playing and Ray looks at him and smiles with useless affection seeping into his bones.</p><p>“Backseat fun,” Mikey smiles back, warm and sweet with a tiny bit of his canines peeking out.</p><p>Ray pictures Mikey in his lap, softly sucking on the vein in Ray’s neck, teeth pricking the skin, unlacing Ray’s pants with his pointed little smile. Ray shudders and thinks <em>Oh</em> and <em>shit</em>.</p><p> </p><p>*</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Look it's me, splitting yet another chapter that got massively out of hand into two chapters. No self-restraint in this house. </p><p>Me in the notes last chapter: I promise they actually get into the fucking spooky house in the next chapter.<br/>Me squinting at the end of this chapter: Yup, no integrity from me, an asshole.</p><p>Warnings for this chapter that I haven't already tagged for: Brief mention of puppy play. Even briefer possible vague allusion to something that could be construed as piss kink if you squint, I guess? Other than that, things just get slightly spookier.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mikey looks out of the backseat window at the shadows of tree branches slinking closer to the road and listens to the soft crackle of leather as Ray nods along to “Zero”. Ray has a way of nodding along to the layered guitar parts with his whole frame. Mikey’s avoiding looking at his absorbed face, those full lips mouthing along with the lyrics, and his lap, restrictive pants emphasised by the light tense and release of his thighs as he rocks with the rhythm. Mikey adjusts his headphone and wants to ask to turn the volume up. The track isn’t playing loud enough to distract Mikey from the fact that Ray’s attracted to guys. And not only attracted: Ray <em>partakes</em>, trails after a guy whose attention he catches back to their dorm or maybe their parents’ house and closes the door after him as he comes inside and <em>what?</em> What does Ray want when he’s alone with a guy?</p><p>Mikey fixates on a piece of grime on his window, wondering if Ray lets guys fix their lips around his lower one and play with his hair, if they tell him his lips are so soft, if Ray smiles and rubs against them in the place where he’s not soft at all. Mikey wonders if Ray takes them out of their pants first, all calloused attentive hands, or if they reach for his cock almost right away, needy from looking at the thick curve of him that Mikey’s had an eyeful of in those lace-up pants. Mikey pictures Ray’s warm hands pushing down on wide shoulders, his curls starting to plaster against his arched throat as he closes his eyes and lets a pretty boy with vague features and a Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt take care of him on their knees.</p><p>Mikey thinks about how he conscientiously put on an Iron Maiden t-shirt for Ray’s birthday and asked him what he wished for after Ray blew out the candles on the squashed cake Frank bought him in a plastic container from the store. Mikey feels like a fucking idiot. He’s pretty sure Ray doesn’t even particularly like Siouxsie and the Banshees. The reason Ray doesn’t look at Mikey like he’s pretty isn’t that Ray’s not into guys like that. And from what Gerard saw at that party, it isn’t that Ray’s not into skinny guys in band t-shirts who linger at his shoulder at parties and tentatively touch his chest to get his attention over the noise. Mikey plays with his own wrist and thinks about Ray turning and glancing down at Mikey’s fingers on his chest, licking away a bit of icing at the corner of his lip and smiling at him, looking so content with his eyebrows raised in attentive inquiry. Mikey forgot what he was going to ask and just said ‘Happy Birthday’ again, flushing and grinning when Ray beamed at him and draped an arm around his shoulder. It’s pretty clear, now that Mikey’s got the full picture, that what Ray’s not into sexually is <em>Mikey</em>.</p><p>Mikey tries to pick at the grime on the window but it’s not on the inside and his finger slides and makes a squeaking noise on the laminated glass. He frowns at the painted bones of his reflection, permeated by dark tree branches, and wonders how tricky it would be to wriggle his phone out of his pants and text without Gerard picking up on it. He wants to text Pete and ask him to come around later. Mikey wants a stiff, appreciative reminder that someone thinks he’s attractive: that someone doesn’t look at him like he’s still Gerard’s awkward, weird baby brother, always dragging in the wake of Gerard’s art-genius rep, tagging along on his dates with a guy who would never look at him like Frank looks at -</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Mikey jumps at the sound of Ray’s voice and the touch of his fingers on his neck. Mikey hadn’t realised his headphone had fallen out but he realises from how loud the softly spoken word is in the backseat that Ray’s paused the music anyway.</p><p>“You’re tensing your neck like crazy,” Ray tells him, long fingers rubbing into a clump of muscle that Mikey realises now feels like a solid rock under his skin. The pads of Ray’s fingers are warm and persistent as they work into the knot and his thumb rests lightly at the nape of Mikey’s neck. “You’re gonna hurt yourself like that with that angle.”</p><p>“I…” The steady pressure of Ray’s fingers working on him and the light, gentle way he’s talking landslide into Mikey’s nerve endings and his brain and he trails off. Mikey’s not used to people he’s fantasised about being gentle with him. It’s not through any fault of the people he’s fucked, because Mikey’s used to getting what he likes in bed or in the alley, and Mikey’s impatient. He likes it pretty rough and pretty fast, impatient teeth gnawing at Pete’s neck as Pete groans and thrusts harder inside him, or slow and dirty, the sticky wet drag as he pulls all the way out of a girl and then slides slowly back inside her while she calls him names that make him smirk.</p><p>The corner of Mikey’s lip twitches when he tries to picture Ray calling him names. It doesn’t look real. The aching lump in his neck is starting to soften and come apart under Ray’s hand, and the signals passing through Mikey’s synapses pile into each other like a traffic jam as his mind suddenly pictures other things instead. Ray brushing his fringe away from his eyes on his dorm bed, leaning down over him and telling him he’s amazing, gently rubbing his fingers inside his parted thighs. Mikey thinks his face must be the colour of his brother’s dumbest lipgloss as his lips work to form words again and he only manages to stiffly turn his head and look at Ray’s warm brown eyes.</p><p>Ray looks at his face and withdraws his hand.</p><p>“Man, I’m sorry, Mikey. I probably should’ve asked before I just… did that.” Ray mumbles out the last part and he looks embarrassed. Mikey realises Ray’s misread his monosyllabic reaction as Mikey being uncomfortable with Ray touching him without permission, and Mikey wants to say <em>“No, please ignore that, I’m stupid.”</em> For all that Ray probably looks at him like Gerard’s gawky, slutty little brother who pretty much only manages to hold up his part of their conversations if he’s prattling with nervous excitement about <em>Dawn of the Dead</em> or <em>Jaws</em> – because Ray loves them too, and Mikey <em>loves</em> that – for all that that’s awkward with Ray now playing a starring role in fantasies Mikey wasn’t even aware he had, Mikey doesn’t want Ray to think it’s not alright to touch him. Mikey thinks about losing Ray’s arm around his waist when they hug, and his fingers guiding his on the strings when he helps him with the bass he’s learning to play, and the way that Ray rubs his knuckles softly along his arm when Mikey looks stressed. Mikey swallows the displeased whine that wants to come out of his mouth and tries to correct Ray’s impression.</p><p>“No it’s alright, you can rub it,” Mikey says, and instantly thinks about how he phrased that as poorly as possible with Frank present.</p><p>Frank predictably snorts and turns around in the front seat. Mikey means to roll his eyes at him but Frank’s eyes land on his face at the same moment that Ray’s fingers land on his neck again and Mikey swallows hard. Frank’s mouth is open and smirking like he was about to add his usual “That’s what she said”, but he pauses as he looks at Mikey’s face. Mikey watches Frank take in his flushed skin and large pupils and the circles of Ray’s fingers on his neck and Mikey can see the machinery in Frank’s head turning. Frank’s eyes widen and dance.</p><p>“Frank-” Mikey starts with his spine straightening in his seat, but Frank is already talking.</p><p>“So I saw Toro’s dick for the first time last month,” Frank announces loudly. Mikey flushes harder and hastily shoves his Coke bottle back between his lips, trying to look profoundly unfazed by that information. Ray’s fingers pause, pressing hard.</p><p>“I’m intrigued,” Gerard smirks, teeth shiny in the rear-view. Frank grins back at him and then his eyes flicker subtly to Mikey under his lashes.</p><p>“He’s been pretty weird about getting changed in front of me for like a whole year, so I figured it was probably really tiny, or like he had a weird mole or something-”</p><p>“Frank-” Ray says, taking his hand off Mikey’s neck and looking alarmed, but Frank barrels on.</p><p>“And <em>wow</em> was I wrong. That thing is like a fucking Coke bottle.”</p><p>Mikey chokes on his mouthful of Coke and manages to spit Coke all down his front. Ray pats him on the back and Mikey coughs and wants to die.</p><p>“Called it,” Gerard smirks, looking far too gleeful. Ray gives Gerard a perplexed frown.</p><p>“It’s not…” Ray flushes furiously and looks down. “It’s normal.”</p><p>Frank snorts.</p><p>“Normal like walking around with something the size of Mikey’s forearm in your pants is normal. That’s probably why you never take the people you pull at parties back to our dorm right, like it must be a whole process, lowering them down onto it with a crane.”</p><p>Gerard is cackling. Mikey’s trying not to look at his forearms. Ray puts his head in his hands.</p><p>“I’m gonna kill you,” he mumbles in Frank’s direction.</p><p>Frank scoffs.</p><p>“With what, your huge dick?”</p><p>Ray ignores him.</p><p>“Once we’re parked, you’re dead. On your birthday. Gerard’s gonna fuck my new roommate who loves privacy. On your grave. They won’t leave flowers.”</p><p>Frank makes a little noise of displeasure.</p><p>“They love privacy but they’re gonna consent to sex on Frank’s grave?” Gerard asks. He sounds more fascinated than critical of the idea and Frank pouts at him.</p><p>“I would take you flowers,” Gerard says. “And wear a pretty dress to your funeral.”</p><p>Frank looks pacified but his lips pout again.</p><p>“Nothing about avenging me though.”</p><p>Gerard shrugs and puffs out smoke through an ‘O’ of lipgloss.</p><p>“Ray’s pretty big. And it would be a pretty short dress. Lace panties underneath…” Gerard reaches across to Frank’s face and tucks a lock of Frank’s black hair behind his ear, fingering the piercing there for a second. “There’s a joke about <em>raising</em> the dead in there somewhere…”</p><p>Mikey’s expecting a wisecrack or a smirk from Frank, but Frank looks down at his lap and then back at Gerard in silence, flustered and eyes almost shy under his zombie face paint.</p><p>“I said no ghost porn on the drive,” Mikey mutters.</p><p>“Technically I think that’s more like zombie porn,” Ray says. He looks relieved at the change of topic, but Mikey feels too gloomy to really engage with him on the finer points of zombie versus ghost-fucking. He pulls uselessly at the wet skeleton dress, which is now clinging to half of his torso. It’s sticky and cold and now he reeks of Diet Coke and he’s shivering. It’s like it wasn’t enough to get dragged on this date and for Frank to discover his dumb fixation with Ray. Now he’s going to wind up in bed with a cold. Mikey startles when Ray’s knuckles rub lightly along his arm, warm pressure over the clinging wet t-shirt sleeve.</p><p>“Do you want my jacket, Mikey?”</p><p>Mikey looks down at his forearm as Ray’s knuckles trail down. Frank’s words about Ray’s size play in his head and his mouth waters.</p><p>“Yeah, please,” Mikey says miserably.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Frank’s flinging his door open and flying out of the car in a sprint across the rest stop gravel the instant Gerard puts the handbrake on. Mikey has no idea where Frank thinks he’s going to escape to as he stretches his limbs and watches bits of gravel fly around Frank’s ankles as he propels himself towards the tree line. Ray’s out of his door a moment later, pebbles crunching under his heavy boots as he pursues him. Frank’s fragment of a head start isn’t an adequate measure against Ray’s long legs, and Ray tackles him about five feet away from the forest. One of Frank’s Converse flies in the air as Frank goes down with a yelp and a loud crunch. Mikey smiles. It’s pretty satisfying.</p><p>“Got you, you obnoxious, mouthy little fucker,” Ray tells Frank as he wrestles him under him. “Do I talk to anyone about the hundred times I’ve seen <em>your</em> dick?”</p><p>“You should, because my dick is probably the prettiest dick you’ll ever see,” Frank pants, twisting underneath him. His knee’s coming up under Ray’s groin, but Ray’s obviously had plenty of experience dealing with Frank’s tactics and he pulls back and flips Frank onto his belly, pinning him down with his weight on top of him. Frank yelps again and then almost shrieks with laughter as Ray twists his arm behind his back and tickles his ribs. Mikey watches the way that Ray’s frame shadows Frank’s entire body with them lying on the ground like that, the way that the pressure of his weight pushes Frank deeper into the gravel.</p><p>“Fuck, don’t,” Frank pants out, laughing and then groaning. “I’m gonna piss myself.”</p><p>“Not sure I heard that right,” Ray says with a fake contemplative expression, fingers still digging under Frank’s armpit and making him writhe. Mikey doesn’t miss the way he takes his weight off Frank’s middle, resting it on his thighs and shoulder instead. Mikey chews his lip, wishing that Ray’s freaking <em>conscientiousness</em> didn’t turn him on.</p><p>“Uncle. Uncle, uncle, uncle,” Frank pants, one shoeless foot flailing uselessly from underneath Ray’s calves. Ray’s fingers pause under his arm.</p><p>“Uncle <em>and?</em>”</p><p>“And I promise not to talk about your monster cock?”</p><p>Ray releases an exasperated noise and backs off of him.</p><p>“You’re so lucky it’s your birthday,” he tells Frank, brushing gravel off his leather pants and lending Frank his other hand to pull him up. “You’re a pest.”</p><p>Frank grins up at him, baring all his teeth and batting his eyelashes, feral and kittenish. Gerard’s leaning against the frame of the car and watching Frank with a look so predatory and intense it makes Mikey wince for <em>Frank</em>. All that writhing, Mikey guesses. He wonders if that’s part of what has Gerard so hyperfixated on Frank lately, the way he’s all wet tongue sticking out and scrappy: sharp little shiny piercings through his soft pink parts. Mikey wonders if Ray kind of likes that too and his chest aches.</p><p>“I’m fucking rad and you love me. I gotta take a piss,” Frank announces, wriggling part of his foot back into his shoe and then walking lopsidedly towards the tree line. Ray gives him a last exasperated look and walks back over to Mikey and Gerard.</p><p>“Looks good on you,” Ray smiles, nodding his head at his leather jacket, which is too large for Mikey’s skinny shoulders. Mikey pulls it closer across the pearlescent bones sticking damp to his chest, shuddering at Ray’s warmth still lingering inside.</p><p>“I probably look like I’m playing dress-up in my big brother’s stuff like when I was five and Gee was like nine,” Mikey smiles, and then cringes at his babbling. Ray looks crestfallen for a moment. Mikey doesn’t understand why but he tries again. “Your shoulders are pretty big. I’m like a piece of ramen.”</p><p>Ray smiles, a light flush high on his cheeks in the gloaming.</p><p>“Ramen’s pretty great.”</p><p>Mikey inhales the smell of cinnamon and sugar from the jacket and turns away, looking at Gerard. Gerard’s watching Frank, who’s loudly unbuckling his belt about a foot inside the tree line. Gerard sighs at the noise of the metal clinking and the zipper pulling under Frank’s fingers, nostrils flaring in the cold air.</p><p>“Gross,” Mikey tells him.</p><p>“You got that map, Gerard?” Ray asks, carding a hand through his hair and squinting at the dark trees flanking the rest stop. “We’re gonna lose visibility pretty fast and I can’t actually see the start of the path…”</p><p> “It probably starts like a little way in.” Gerard makes an airy gesture with his fingers, looking unfazed. “Besides, what’s the worst problem we could possibly face if we can’t find a dirt path? It’s gonna be hard to miss a big hunting lodge if we head in its general direction.”</p><p>Ray sighs and looks up at the sky like he’s looking for answers about why Gerard is like this, and then starts counting things on his fingers.</p><p>“I’m gonna go with getting lost all night, tripping over shit and breaking bones, rattlesnakes, hogweed, lily of the valley, black bears…if we’re really unlucky maybe a bobcat.  And that’s like the most plausible problems,” he adds as Frank crunches back up to them. “The possible problems list is longer. Like for instance I’m choosing to assume your forum buddy isn’t listening to us through the trees with a bag of torture devices and a hard-on.” Ray looks around again and frowns. “This rest stop doesn’t even have a road sign.”</p><p>“Lily of the valley?” Gerard frowns. “I’m pretty sure that’s not a problem unless you’ve got dogs. It’s not like we’re gonna eat it.”</p><p>“I dunno,” Ray mutters, tilting his chin towards Frank, “this one’s clearly suffering from me not walking him before we left the house.”</p><p>Frank rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Woof,” he says flatly, sticking his tongue out like he’s panting with a sarcastic look.</p><p>Gerard’s eyes go very dark and interested. Mikey groans and smacks him in the ribs.</p><p>“Not <em>now</em>, Gee.” He shoves his fingers past the open zip of Gerard’s leather jacket, fishing out the folded up map from the inside pocket and passing it to Ray. “Is there any nasty shit you guys <em>don’t</em> wanna do to each other?”</p><p>Mikey wishes he hadn’t said that last part the moment it leaves his tongue. In the face of all signs pointing to the fact that Ray’s not interested, he still feels anxious at the idea of Ray thinking he’s not down for anything that falls under words like that, thinking there aren’t plenty of things Mikey would want to try for him, if he asked. Mikey pictures Ray putting a collar on him, something velvet that could pass as a choker, slipping his long fingers under it and gently tugging Mikey’s face towards his lap on the floor.</p><p>“Come on, Mikey Way,” Frank drawls, and Mikey realises he’s touching his own neck and flushes as he buries his hand in the pocket of his pants. Frank’s eyelashes fan out as he smirks, his eyes sharp on Mikey’s face. He reaches over and pulls Gerard’s fingers up and into his hair, like Gerard’s petting him, Mikey realises with a grimace. Gerard’s nails drag over Frank’s skull, lips slightly parted in that sugary smile that’s twisting into a snarl. Frank flushes and tilts his head back, eyes dark and pretty as he grins. “I would never entertain dirty fantasies about present company.”</p><p>“Okay!” Ray says loudly, looking as perturbed as Mikey and clapping Frank on the back with a firmness that physically pushes Frank forward on the gravel. “Let’s get fucking haunted!”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“It’s like the motherfucking <em>Evil Dead</em> trees,” Mikey curses as another thin, whip-like branch catches him in the ear.</p><p>“Don’t listen to him,” Gerard tells one of the trees he’s passing, patting it on the trunk. “You’re way less rapey than the <em>Evil Dead</em> trees.”</p><p>“Don’t push our luck,” Mikey mutters, swiping at his stinging ear and trying to look around Frank’s bobbing head with his flashlight.</p><p>They’re inching along what Gerard and Ray were reasonably positive was the path Gerard had drawn from the guy on the Haunted Attractions forum’s description, which is a thin strip of pale flattened earth winding through the forest. The path probably would’ve been tricky to pass through without the added complication of encroaching darkness. Whoever cut the undergrowth back only cleared what now amounts to a little sliver of space on each side of Mikey’s hips, which means that everyone else has brambles trailing along their hips and thighs as they walk. Mikey hears fabric tear in front of him and then Frank’s gasping and almost falling back with a curse so that Mikey has to jam the head of his large flashlight into his lower back and grab his shoulder with his other hand to prop him up.</p><p>“Dude, pretty sure that branch just tried to undress me and then <em>bit</em> me,” Frank frowns, pausing and twisting to pull his shirt up and look at his belly. A low-lying branch or a pretty mean bramble must have snagged in one of the tears low on his scoop neck and pulled as he tried to walk forward, because there’s a large strip of fabric missing from under his navel to his lowest two ribs. Frank presses his fingers up under a line of blood about as long as his pinky finger, the fluid dribbling over the pinkening skin around the cut as Mikey points his flashlight on it. Mikey feels Ray’s breath soft on the nape of his neck as he looks over Mikey’s shoulder.</p><p>“I’ve got antiseptic and band-aids in my backpack. You good to wait until we’re at the house, Frankie?”</p><p>“Are you gonna sit me on your lap and am I gonna get a lollipop and a sticker?”</p><p>“I’ll give you another lollipop later,” Gerard says before Ray can answer, looking down at Frank’s belly and placing his fingers softly on top of Frank’s ribs, black nails rubbing over the pale green fabric. “Does it hurt?”</p><p>Frank looks like he’s frozen in place, ribs lifting under Gerard’s fingers.</p><p>“It’s fine,” he breathes, and his face looks flushed even in the thickening shadows.</p><p>Mikey sighs loudly and shines his flashlight into Gerard’s eyes.</p><p>“Easy, Mikey Way,” Gerard chuckles, and then twists back around and presses forward through the trees. “You’re in a mood tonight.”</p><p>Mikey shoots a testy look at the wavy shadow that he thinks might be the back of Gerard’s head.</p><p>“Which is weird, because normally I love being on my brother’s dates in a dark forest where I can’t see shit five feet in front of me, dealing with sexually aggressive trees.”</p><p>Darkness hasn’t finished swallowing the dusk leaking through the tree cover, but that last weak light isn’t really giving Mikey any relief. The shadows are swelling around them and he’s shivering again, tendrils of cold reaching into the gap between his stomach and the leather as he tries to push Ray’s jacket flat over his belly with one hand. Mikey’s breath is fogging up his glasses now, which is fucking <em>great</em>, Mikey thinks, the tips of his ears pink with cold and embarrassment, because wiping at them with his wrist hasn’t prevented him from tripping over underlying roots and falling into Ray’s arms <em>twice</em>.</p><p>Mikey presses the heavy toe of his lace-up boot suspiciously into what looks like it might be another bump in the path in front of him as they make their way forward. Thick, gnarled roots cross under the oddly pale soil over the path, with no brown or black wood protruding, only snaking bumps like raised veins under skin. Mikey’s not over his last fall into Ray’s chest and the noise he made when Ray’s strong forearm clamped around his abdomen, warm fingers digging into the skin over his iliac crest. He’s prioritising looking out for those roots. The trade-off is getting whipped in the face and shoulders by the lash-like branches Gerard sends flying as he pushes forward into the forest. Frank’s short enough that the tallest ones Gerard disturbs fly past his head, and he’s close enough to Gerard’s line of sight to dodge most of the others. Mikey, on the other hand, is pretty certain he has little lash-marks all over his face.</p><p>“Mikey look out,” Frank warns with a sudden twist sideways, which gives Mikey about enough time to cringe and try to guess where the impact is going to hit. It’s a lower and larger branch than he was expecting, the sinewy limb landing with a thud on his ribs. Mikey’s spine is pressed into Ray’s front from the force of the blow, and he gasps as Ray gropes at his thigh, long fingers going up under Mikey’s dress and sliding over the front of  his jeans, hips pushing forward so the laces of his leather pants are flush against Mikey. Mikey’s stomach flutters pleasantly at Ray touching him like that in the dark, not understanding what it means but wanting it so bad. Mikey understands what it means point five of a second later when he’s falling with Ray into the dirt and the part of his brain that isn’t pretty fucked up over Ray sighs and reluctantly comes back online; Ray lost traction on the path as his frame absorbed the impact and grabbed blindly at Mikey for purchase, pushing forward to try to prevent them both going down. And now, now Mikey is in Ray’s <em>lap</em>.</p><p>Mikey’s shocked. It’s a shock that runs through him like the first time someone touched him with intent in the pit at a grimy basement gig, like a wire pulsing from the foreign pressure to his lips and his fingertips and the back of his neck and his dick. Ray’s hair is tickling the nape of his neck, making the hairs at the base of Mikey’s skull stand up. He feels the laces of Ray’s pants press into his ass through the thin viscose dress and the black stretch fabric of his jeans, and the press of Ray’s cock, a soft thick curve in his lap, encased by the laces and nestled under Mikey’s tailbone in the crease of his ass. Mikey’s vision is dark and clouded and he tries to wipe at his glasses and finds that they’ve fallen off. Mikey whines, moving his palm from where it’s resting above Ray’s knee and padding it along the dirt to try to find them, but it only puts more of his weight on Ray’s crotch and he feels Ray wince under him.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Mikey croaks, and Ray’s nose presses into the back of his neck for a moment, like he’s nuzzling the skin there. Mikey wishes that’s what it was instead of just trying to look over Mikey’s shoulder and move around him in the dark.</p><p>“I got you,” Ray murmurs, and Mikey feels cool glass being pressed into his fingers. “Pretty sure they’re not cracked.”</p><p>Mikey’s fingers are awkward as he puts them back on and then he winces as his vision is swamped with light. Frank’s picked up Mikey’s flashlight from wherever Mikey dropped it in his fall and now he’s shining both of the flashlights over Ray and Mikey on the ground.</p><p>“Look at you.” Frank whistles and Mikey finally has the presence of mind to push himself off of Ray’s lap. Ray makes a relieved sound and Mikey cringes with embarrassment. “Not gonna lie,” Frank says, “I’m pretty surprised that the trees chose to molest us first over Mikey.” Mikey realises that Frank’s looking past him at Ray and shuffles around as he pulls himself up onto his knees so he can look too.</p><p>The leather on Ray’s hips, groin and thighs is adorned with more than ten long, thin scratches, almost like the brambles were playing with him, dragging their nails over his body. There’s also a tear in his long-sleeved black tee, rending the fabric in a diagonal line from above his collarbone to the side of his chest, so that Mikey can see the pink scratch in the slit and part of Ray’s armpit, a tiny flash of wiry dark hair. Mikey feels guilty for accepting his jacket, blinking at that pink raised line of skin that looks so soft and sensitive in the torchlight.</p><p>“Why is it my job to get molested by evil trees?” Mikey mutters as he gets to his feet and stretches out his hand for Ray.</p><p>“You’re the obvious choice,” Frank informs him. “You put out the most. That and you dress like you’re turning tricks and then ride Newark subway late at night with like, a blithe lack of concern for your personal safety. You’re the pretty, slutty girl who dies first in the movie.”</p><p>Mikey glares at him.</p><p>“You what?” Ray looks at Mikey with concern as he pulls himself up with Mikey’s help. “Like the Newark City Subway in the middle of the night alone?” His thumb rubs over Mikey’s knuckles for a moment and Mikey realises he’s still holding onto Ray’s hand, his subconscious almost purring at the calluses and the warmth and the strong grip around his fingers. “I’m mostly pretty free late nights if you want someone to meet you on the platform, Mikey.”</p><p>“See,” Frank says, “Ray has a pretty big hard-on for safety <em>and</em> he puts out the least. Ray dies last.”</p><p>“Thanks, Frank,” Ray says, also glaring at Frank.</p><p>“That might be cool,” Mikey mumbles to Ray. “With the platform I mean.” Mikey trails his fingers over the back of Ray’s hand and feels stupid, the gesture tentatively flirting with a guy who pretty much just said he wants to babysit him. Ray’s hand twitches and he smiles. Mikey doesn’t understand how he looks so good with half his face in the dark and half washed out by the flashlight. Ray’s really beautiful, Mikey realises. And not just in the way Mikey already understood, where he has full lips and tumbling curls and strong arms and these pecs with the tiniest bit of give in them. There’s this thing that’s flat-out beautiful about the way that Ray’s quiet affection and protectiveness for others touches parts of his face when he looks at other people. Mikey’s fingers linger and Ray bumps his thumb into Mikey’s almost clumsily, like a very gentle thumb war.</p><p>“-sweet death scene, Mikey,” Frank is saying, “Like that blonde chick in <em>Nightmare on Elm Street, </em>blood all over the place, levitating and shit, Pete Wentz probably in boxers in the room freaking out-”</p><p>“I dunno, Frankie,” Gerard tells him, tree limbs snapping around him as he makes his way back to them. Mikey realises he must have passed further into the forest without the rest of them pursuing him. Gerard’s pretty fixated on this house. “I mean for one thing if we’re in <em>Evil Dead</em> we’re not really running on like teen slasher rules. Besides, say we were: there’s not a lot of personal backstory in most of those movies. Pretty sure no one’s put out <em>tonight</em>, so who dies first in our story is anyone’s game.”</p><p>“I’ll put out for the evil trees if they buy me dinner first,” Frank declares, rubbing his belly in the moonlight that’s starting to creep over his torso. “Got any cake in that backpack, Toro?”</p><p>“Shit, I didn’t-” Gerard cuts himself off and looks paler, maybe a little rosy around the neck.</p><p>“You didn’t get me a cake?” Frank fills in with a soft shyness in his eyes as he looks at Gerard’s anxious pallor. “It’s cool, not that big a fan of cake.”</p><p>“You love chocolate cake, Frankie,” Gerard murmurs, and Frank blushes. They’ve got a waxing moon tonight, most of its way to full, and Mikey notices its light slinking further through the trees now, glinting off Frank’s skin. “I wasn’t thinking.”</p><p>Ray clears his throat.</p><p>“I put some cake in our mini-fridge, Frankie.”</p><p>Gerard and Frank look at him with relieved smiles, though Mikey can still taste the anxiety and soft lust crackling in the air, burnt and sticky-sweet like toasted marshmallow. Gerard’s pretty fucked up over Frank too, Mikey realises, changing colours and almost paralysed over a birthday cake. Mikey would take any odds that Gerard’s gonna be buying Frank cakes for a week.</p><p>There’s a loud snap in the forest behind Mikey’s back, like one of them has snapped a branch underfoot. Mikey wheels around, because none of them are moving. There’s not another sound, the forest silent except for Mikey’s breath and the soft breathing of the others around him.</p><p>“Yeah, I don’t love that,” Ray frowns, his hand coming up and pressing over Mikey’s lower back. It feels unconscious and protective and Mikey wants to rub his face into Ray’s neck. When Mikey looks he sees Ray’s placed a protective hand on Gerard’s lower back too and he tries not to look too put-out.</p><p>“Probably a deer,” Gerard says.</p><p>“Totally,” Ray says with a sarcastic expression. “Deer are known for stealthily approaching large potential predators for no reason, making one really loud sound and then going dead silent in a dense thicket. You know, there’s plenty of local haunted houses that we could-”</p><p>“No, come on, please,” Frank whines, chewing his lip. “I wanna finish my date.”</p><p>Ray sighs and Mikey sees his face soften.</p><p>“Fine, Frankie. But once we find the place, we poke around for one hour, max, and then we’re on our way to a place that’s got central heating and hot food.”</p><p>“Deal,” Frank grins, and then thrusts Mikey’s flashlight back at him and nudges Gerard, indicating for him to keep pushing along the path. Gerard grins at Ray too and plants a kiss on his cheek. Mikey stiffens. He doesn’t like how good they look together for a second in the moonlight, Ray smiling and rolling his eyes and Gerard all twisting black hair and glittering torso as he leaves a little shiny lipgloss mark on Ray’s face.</p><p>Ray doesn’t move his fingers from Mikey’s lower back for the rest of way down the path, guiding him as Mikey’s breath makes a thick layer of condensation on his glasses. Mikey thinks about what it might be like: Ray meeting him on the subway platform and taking him home, letting Mikey put his hand on his thigh in the car and listening to Mikey talk about that night’s gig. Ray making him get in the shower until he’s not cold from the trip anymore and his skin is pink and clean, and then pressing him against the glass, smiling, guiding him. The trees above him groan like they can taste it.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Holy fuck dude.” Frank’s eyes are wide with a mix of awe and wicked delight.</p><p>Gerard looks delighted too, little teeth and the whites of his eyes glinting and his long black hair in tangles around his face from the trees snatching at it now that Mikey’s got a clear view of him in the moonlit clearing. Gerard softly grips Frank’s chin and tilts it up, pointing Frank’s eyeline up at the rotting balcony on the second story of the lodge.</p><p>“Look. For you, Frankie. Happy Birthday.”</p><p>Frank rolls his eyes.</p><p>“I’m not Mikey; I’m fine to look at shit in front of me without you pointing my face at it. You push all the boys’ heads where you want ’em on first dates, Gee? And wow, I had no idea you built this house.” Frank pokes his tongue out at Gerard, but his pupils are full and his face looks flushed with pleasure as he looks back at the house.</p><p>Ray whistles.</p><p>“That motherfucker is <em>big</em>.” Ray looks impressed and Mikey’s reluctantly impressed too. Ray’s not wrong. The hunting lodge looks vast and dark in the moonlight, a strong smell of rotting wood oozing over them from its blackened beams, so dark and rotten they look almost wet. Mikey has no idea how the balcony hasn’t fallen off from rot, but it looks almost perfectly intact, designs still present in the wood as Ray shines his flashlight upwards.</p><p>“Look at that fretwork, that’s so cool,” Ray says, nodding at the balcony, and Gerard gives him a teasing, affectionate smile.</p><p>“I never thought I’d hear you say that about anything except guitar-playing. Hey wait, are those <em>gargoyles?</em>”</p><p>Ray glances at Gerard’s eyeline and then squints back at part of the fretwork on the front of the balcony.</p><p>“Huh. I guess they could be in theory? But who the hell has <em>gargoyles</em> carved into their hunting lodge in Jersey? I’m thinking just weird-looking bears. The wood’s probably warped by now.”</p><p>Frank makes a fart noise.</p><p>“Killjoy. It’s preeettty fucking clear that they’re demons. <em>Bears,</em>” Frank scoffs and blows another raspberry at Ray, and then bounds towards the front of the house. Gerard trails him. Ray looks like he wants to pursue them but he looks at Mikey and smiles.</p><p>“We should probably…”</p><p>“Give them a moment, yeah,” Mikey smiles, and Ray looks relieved.</p><p>“What do you think they’re talking about?” Ray asks as they watch Gerard softly touch Frank’s hair as his lips move and Frank nod at whatever he’s telling him, attention focused back on Gerard under the shadow of the wrap-around porch.</p><p>“Cake,” Mikey says and Ray smiles at him.</p><p>“You know,” Ray says, “I’ve never seen two people who hit on each other like that be so <em>freaked out</em> by each other. I made Frank those weird butter sandwiches he’s into for lunch and he couldn’t even touch them. He chewed his nails down so much on the drive to your place there were teeth marks on his fingers. And then he just sits in the guy’s lap? Blows my mind.”</p><p>“Gerard chain smokes like that when he’s nervous,” Mikey smiles, thinking about Gerard churning through cigarettes in the car and trying to make it look casual with his restless pink-tinged face.</p><p>Ray chuckles and nods.</p><p>“Sorry about Frankie running his mouth in the car.” Ray watches Gerard’s fingers trail over Frank’s exposed rib and Frank drape an arm over his shoulder and lean into him, the decrepit porch railings casting skeletal fingers of shadow over their touching bodies. “I think he’ll probably calm down a little bit after they work this out.”</p><p>“I mean you like, copped some of it too,” Mikey shrugs.</p><p>“Oh, right,” Ray says with a red face and an awkward laugh. “More information than you wanted about my junk, right?” Mikey’s certain Ray’s the only guy he’s met whose reaction to people finding out he’s packing is mortification. Mikey watches Ray force himself to smile through the awkwardness and wants to put his arms around his neck and tell him that he’s perfect.</p><p>“Oh, no, like I- I mean I didn’t mean it like that,” Mikey stutters out. He laughs nervously, shivering because he feels like every pore in his body is projecting his social awkwardness like a beacon. “It’s fine. I mean I’m not like, freaked out by what Frank thinks about your…” Mikey makes a vague, airy gesture at the area of his own crotch and Ray’s eyes track the movement. Mikey looks up at the dark tree tops curling into the clearing above them and breathes through dry lips, wishes Ray was watching him the way he’s fantasised about.</p><p>“It’s alright, Mikey,” Ray says softly and clears his throat. Mikey looks back at him and Ray’s looking at Mikey’s stomach, at the strip of fabric that isn’t covered by the leather jacket. “Your dress is really wet. You must be pretty cold.”</p><p>Mikey doesn’t manage to smother a giggle at that, anxious tension finally tipping over like he’s an overfilled glass.</p><p>“That’s like a porn line,” Mikey attempts to explain, giggling again in the darkness as a cloud passes over the moon and his flashlight beams into the dark earth where he’s let his wrist go limp with its weight. Ray laughs softly and the trees rustle around them.</p><p>“Like the part where I’m meant to say we should get you out of those wet clothes?” Ray’s voice is warm and raspy and Mikey’s giggle dies in his throat.</p><p>“I-” Mikey starts, but there’s a loud creak from the porch of the lodge and Ray’s attention snaps to Frank and Gerard.</p><p>“That’s rotten wood, guys!” Ray calls out, wincing with his whole frame as the moonlight leaks into the clearing again. “You don’t wanna put weight on it in one place like that!” Gerard and Frank are on the porch now, with Frank partially draped over Gerard’s back. Frank’s got one arm around Gerard’s neck and one clamped around his chest so that Gerard’s part-piggybacking and part-dragging him over the loudly protesting porch. “Boys!” Ray tries again, looking further alarmed as Gerard lurches forward. “Frank! Could you please <em>not</em>-” Ray cuts himself off with a huff of air through his chest, the pale strip of skin with its pink scratch falling and then rising as he inhales again. “They’re gonna go through that porch.” He looks at Mikey then with a rueful smile. “Wanna help me pull Frankie and your brother apart?”</p><p>Mikey really doesn’t. Mikey wants to go back to that flash of time in the dark when the rasp in Ray’s voice tapped at his throat like warm fingers and he could pretend that Ray was flirting with him.</p><p>Mikey makes himself smile and squares his shoulders.</p><p>“I’m gonna work with the spiders angle.”<br/>
<br/>
</p><p><br/>
*</p><p><br/>
“You fucking promise it’s gone?” Frank asks, biting his lip and looking at Mikey with suspicious eyes from where he’s positioned himself over five feet away from Gerard. “What if there are like, tiny spider babies in his hair now?” Frank’s peering out from behind Ray on the porch like he needs to be protected from the imminent peril of tiny spider babies.</p><p>“Pretty sure I got it out,” Mikey nods, combing his fingers through Gerard’s hair as he pretends to continue looking for the imaginary spider he’d pointed out. “Also spiders don’t shoot out live babies on whatever they land on like weird little alien dudes, they lay eggs. So if it laid eggs Gerard’ll probably wash his hair before they come out. Probably,” Mikey adds with a thoughtful look.</p><p>Frank looks so distressed by this prospect that Mikey schools his face into a look of concentration to stifle a giggle. Gerard looks at Mikey sideways with a knowing arch of his eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything, just lets Mikey keep playing with his hair.</p><p>“It’s great to know you’d protect me if I <em>was</em> attacked by alien spider babies, Frankie,” Gerard says softly, poking only the pink tip of his tongue out of his lips and looking at Frank with a challenge in his eyes as he leans into Mikey’s fingers. “It makes me all gooey and suggestible.”</p><p>The internal war this provokes in Frank plays across his face. At first he just takes a couple of reluctant steps forward so that Ray’s frame isn’t a protective wall anymore and tilts his chin up as he looks at Gerard, that tilted angle of his jaw pretty and stubborn in the triangle of Gerard’s flashlight. Mikey feels Gerard tilt his own head down as the two look at each other, Gerard’s breath warm and damp on his wrist in the night air. Frank sighs and loudly pushes the air out through his nose and then he’s walking over and gripping Gerard’s fingers with his.</p><p>“Buy one of those lice combs for the spider babies, motherfucker,” Frank grumbles. And Mikey wonders if it’s Gerard’s soft laugh, or if the way Mikey feels Gerard melt at the stubborn clench of Frank’s hand flushes Gerard’s face, but as Gerard looks down at Frank, Frank’s fractious expression fades. Frank looks up at Gerard with this pure lust and stomachache dread, face longing and lip-ring wet like the thick anxiety is dripping from his lips. Frank looks at Gerard like he’s <em>perfect</em>, and Mikey’s spine is punctured and filled with a liquid envy so shocking and venomous it almost feels like it doesn’t belong to him.</p><p>The door of the lodge creaks open.</p><p> </p><p>*</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/">Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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